Space Policy: Why Mars should be our top priority.

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:30:33 +0200, jacob navia wrote:

Marvin the Martian wrote:

Then Get your ass to Mars!

http://OnToMar.org/forum/


(1) Mars is beyond current technology. Only machines can live in there.
Any human expedition to Mars is just science fiction.

Actually, NASA was planning on going to Mars right after Apollo, back in
the early 1970s. This technology is almost 40 years old.

And this fact is a GOOD thing since

(2) Mars has probably life in it. Many hints in the last years have made
this hypothesis much more real: The methane found in Mars, the
amounts of water, there are, probably underground, mars living
beings.

Life on Mars is a reason for going there, not a reason for not going
there.

(3) Since any human expedition to Mars would destroy the possibility
of finding those bacteria, it is a good thing that humans can't go
to mars now

Doesn't follow that humans would destroy life on Mars just by BEING
there.

(4) The technology for living in an independent vessel for more than
3-4 months is just not there

The Soviets had cosmonauts in LEO for over 6 months. Not to put too fine
a point on it, but you seem to be making stuff up.

(5) The landing technology for a heave vessel in Mars is not there

It's not impossible to do.

(6) The technology for living in Mars is not the
o -50 C in the day, -100 in the night
Heating energy would need a nuclear reactor to keep humans from
freezing
o No oxygen. All oxygen has to be brought from earth. o No food. All
food must be brought from earth. o No air pressure. You must live in
pressure suits all
the time you are outside
o Etc

We have had people on the moon, where the temperature variations are even
greater.

No, you don't have to bring all the oxygen from earth. Mars has CO2 and
H2O, and you can easily make oxygen from both.

(7) Since Mars bacteria probably exist, we can't take the risk of
introducing them into the earth biosphere. We can't send humans
since they would bring marsian bacteria with them if we bring them
back. Machines can have a one way trip.

A Mars mission would likely last 18 months on the surface. If no bacteria
kill them, and they don't get sick on the six months back to earth, it is
highly unlikely to be a problem.



--
http://OnToMars.org For discussions about Mars and Mars colonization

On Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:22:17 -0400, David Spain wrote:

Pat Flannery writes:

jacob navia wrote:

(5) The landing technology for a heave vessel in Mars is not there

"Heave Vessel?"
Sounds like space sickness to me. :-D

Pat

Well, I'd suggest a landing technology similar to that used for the Mars
Exploration Rovers would work well....

;-)

Dave

Those were rather small in mass. He has a point in that we've never
landed anything so heavy as a ERV or HAB on the surface of Mars.

Where he's wrong is in thinking it is beyond the capacity of humans to do
this.



--
http://OnToMars.org For discussions about Mars and Mars colonization

Marvin the Martian wrote:
Tired of all the flame wars? Insane posts? Off topic postings?

Want to try a moderated forum?

Then Get your ass to Mars!

http://OnToMar.org/forum/

A new forum where you can discuss space policy, particularly if you
understand why Mars, and not the moon, should be our immediate goal of
our space program.
http://www.ontomars.org/blog/?m=200903

Why the Moon isn’t a Stepping Stone to Mars

Mars has an atmosphere however thin, the moon doesn’t. A Mars day is 24
hours and 40 minutes, a moon day is about 14 earth days. Temperatures are
different between Mars and the Moon. The new technologies needed to go to
Mars like the simulated gravity tether and large mass aerobraking to get
to the Mars surface, have nothing to do with the Moon. So, other than
they require totally different technologies, the moon has little to offer
in the way of Mars development.

The moon has one enormous advantage: three day return trajectory from Earth.

That means you can learn long-duration planetary surface operations on
the moon without it killing you like on Mars.

Crawl before you walk.

Walk before you run.

Those who work in spaceflight operations, as opposed to mere space
cadets, understand these concepts.

Others die.

The time for Mars will come. We must crawl first.

Marvin the Martian wrote:
On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:30:33 +0200, jacob navia wrote:

Marvin the Martian wrote:
Then Get your ass to Mars!

http://OnToMar.org/forum/


(1) Mars is beyond current technology. Only machines can live in there.
Any human expedition to Mars is just science fiction.

Actually, NASA was planning on going to Mars right after Apollo, back in
the early 1970s. This technology is almost 40 years old.

And it's a good thing they didn't; they *thought* they had the
technology but they didn't. There is no ****ing way that Apollo-era life
support systems would have sustained a crew to Mars and back, plus they
grossly underestimated the total radiation dose (Apollo got lucky with
the timing of solar flares, pure and simple.)

(4) The technology for living in an independent vessel for more than
3-4 months is just not there

The Soviets had cosmonauts in LEO for over 6 months. Not to put too fine
a point on it, but you seem to be making stuff up.

The Soviets had Progress spacecraft sending up supplies and replacement
parts every couple of months. Such would not be possible for
transmars/transearth coast. Not to put too fine a point on it, but
you're either ignorant of the true logistics situation or you're lying
your ass off.

(6) The technology for living in Mars is not the
o -50 C in the day, -100 in the night
Heating energy would need a nuclear reactor to keep humans from
freezing
o No oxygen. All oxygen has to be brought from earth. o No food. All
food must be brought from earth. o No air pressure. You must live in
pressure suits all
the time you are outside
o Etc

We have had people on the moon, where the temperature variations are even
greater.

Incorrect. The temperature variations *would* have been greater if we'd
kept the Apollo crews there longer. But as it was, Apollo always landed
within two days of lunar sunrise and never stayed more than three days.
The temperature variations were therefore far more constrained and
predictable. No Apollo equipment was designed for lunar night since it
was never going to experience it.

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


jacob navia wrote:

(5) The landing technology for a heave vessel in Mars is not there

"Heave Vessel?"
Sounds like space sickness to me. :-D

Pat

Well, see for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So if
you heave enough...


Reminds me of space bugs in the movie version of Stormship Troopers. They
apparently could far glowing gas balls out their arse at near relativistic
speeds.



--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

Marvin the Martian wrote:

WE didn’t learn from Apollo and we are in danger of
making the same error.

Yeah, you're making the error Apollo did - promising the moon and
delivering dry science.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Marvin the Martian wrote:

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:30:33 +0200, jacob navia wrote:

Marvin the Martian wrote:

Then Get your ass to Mars!

http://OnToMar.org/forum/


(1) Mars is beyond current technology. Only machines can live in there.
Any human expedition to Mars is just science fiction.

Actually, NASA was planning on going to Mars right after Apollo, back in
the early 1970s. This technology is almost 40 years old.

Planning on doing something is not even remotely connected to the
ability to do it. Folks were planning to go to the moon in the 40's,
and 50's - despite the lack of technology to do so. It is very
instructive to look back and see how very wrong they were about so
many things.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

I noticed the smiley.

But even then, it is not clear what parts of the post were intended to be
serious and which were intended to be humorous,

If the entire post was intended to be humorous, then here is my response:

"Ha, ha!"


Bingo!

Think spin-dry cycle in your washing machine!

Now for the serious commentary...

I'm not a big fan of the return to moon program, at least as currently
envisioned.

Here are my reasons:

1) It's too much like Apollo. I don't know what science we'd accomplish that
we couldn't do far more cheaply with tele-robotics and sample return.

2) I don't know what extra-planetary experience we'd get on the moon as
training for a Mars mission we could not simulate for far less $$$ here on
Earth.

3) The infrastructure needed to develop a return to the moon program as
currently envisioned won't serve us well for a Mars mission, where
durations in space are far longer. What I'd rather see developed is
something akin to the next version of ISS (or perhaps MIR), but with the
ability to *travel*. First to lunar orbit, where we could conduct test
flights to and from the moon, but using the next-gen SS/orbiter to conduct
surface studies, telerobtic landing site probes, etc. In other words the
next-gen station/orbiter becomes a space habitat that also happens to
travel. I can see where this would be infrastructure that would not only
open up the moon, but would directly scale to eventual planetary
exploration. I think Constellation aka Apollo 2.0 will be good at getting
us back to the moon and back and that's about all.

4) Constellation as currently envisioned, as a program dedicated solely to a
"return to the moon", is a hard sell to a public of the mind of "been
there, done that". Esp. during a time of financial crises. Obama might come
out later this year and cancel the whole thing, I don't think in light of
the current financial crises you'd see much uproar over it.

5) If the focus is a return to the moon, I fear that Constellation will not be
allowed to incorporate technology that might enable further interplanetary
exploration because of budget constraints that force it to focus on primary
task (lunar landing/return) to the exclusion of all else. Hence another
one-off with no life beyond what it was designed to do. But at an enormous
cost.

6) It's totally unclear to me that anything in the political/economic realm is
different enough in my country (USA) to prevent the development of a
program that places a habitat on the moon then abandons it to other
countries to exploit all on my tax $.

7) Regarding infrastructure. We've been re-using and re-using ground hardware
at KSC for nearly 1/2 a century. And we're still doing it with
Constellation. Why isn't anyone taking a good hard look at what we're
spending for ground operations. Maybe its really time to retire that 4
track transporter for a rail system? Maybe the VAB could use another
overhaul? I dunno, I think we over-focus on rocketry to the exlusion of
other things.

But hey, I'm a confirmed idiot. Just shut up and fork over the cash pal, leave
the rocket science to the experts and never mind how much it costs or what it
achieves.

Dave

David Spain writes:
3) The infrastructure needed to develop a return to the moon program as
currently envisioned won't serve us well for a Mars mission, where
durations in space are far longer. What I'd rather see developed is
something akin to the next version of ISS (or perhaps MIR), but with the
ability to *travel*. First to lunar orbit, where we could conduct test
flights to and from the moon, but using the next-gen SS/orbiter to conduct
surface studies, telerobtic landing site probes, etc. In other words the
next-gen station/orbiter becomes a space habitat that also happens to
travel. I can see where this would be infrastructure that would not only
open up the moon, but would directly scale to eventual planetary
exploration. I think Constellation aka Apollo 2.0 will be good at getting
us back to the moon and back and that's about all.

If we had a traveling space habitat, an interesting second destination after the
moon might be Venus. How about the mechanics of traveling to Venus and back,
say for a few months in orbit around Venus? Send down all sorts of probes,
take atmospheric samples, etc. Venus is much closer to the Earth than is Mars.
Would transit times be significantly less? I'd think the orbital mechanics would
also yield more frequent return windows? Maybe it'd make a good stepping stone
after the moon but before Mars?

Dave

David Spain wrote:
Well, I'd suggest a landing technology similar to that used for
the Mars Exploration Rovers would work well....

;-)


I never saw that movie, which was supposed to suck.
Ever notice three odd things about "Robinson Crusoe On Mars"?
1.) They abandon the Eleanor M because it's decaying out of orbit... but
somehow after they land it goes right on orbiting, with an perigee that
appears to be around 2,000 feet.
2.) At the end of the movie they are dying of thirst while walking
around in a snowstorm. Unless that's CO2 snow they could just eat it.
3.) Christopher Draper never makes the slightest attempt to determine if
the alien Friday might have a vagina rather than a penis. If "he" was
actually sort of a "she" this could change the whole timbre of the
movie. Don't knock this concept; if that had been Commander William
Riker, that's the _first_ thing he would have checked. :-)

Pat